Friday, February 27, 2009

I have this expression I do, and it means: I'M SO EXCITED!!!!! Yes. five exclamation points. and all caps.

It goes like this: my shoulders go way up. so do my eyebrows. my neck scrunches so my chin is near my shoulders and my head tilts back a little. my eyes roll back and half close. I smile, my mouth open about an inch and a half. and then here is the crucial part: my hands come up in front of my mouth, palms to the face, and I wiggle my fingers. I let out a silent shriek. sometimes an almost silent shriek.

It sometimes varies a bit.

Here are some situations where I might employ that expression:

-I find out I'm going to get the chance to meet a local television news celebrity or politician-my coworker mentions he is going to get a new dryer this weekend

I just realized that there aren't that many situations where I would use that expression. I may need to trade it out for a more versatile one.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

In third grade, my teacher was into theater. He taught us things about it, like once he taught us this song that I still remember that went a little something like this:

hey, look me over, lend me an earfresh out of clover, mortgaged up to here...

It also had hand motions.

But the point is, there was this one time when he was quizzing us on theater vocabulary. He said things like "script" and "director," all of which were defined by eager third graders without a hitch. Then he got to "sets."

For a second I thought he said "sex," though being an ABNORMALLY smart third grader (right, mom?) I quickly deduced, based on the vocabulary category, that he must have said "sets."

But my thoughts were already moving in the wrong direction.

I had recently learned that "sex" didn't ALWAYS mean the thing that unworldly children snickered and whispered about on the playground. Sometimes it was a synonym for "gender."

I thought most of my less-sophisticated classmates were probably unaware of this alternate meaning, so I decided to blow my teacher away with my maturity and volunteer this information.

I guess it temporarily slipped my mind that he hadn't really asked for a definition of "sex."

After a long pause where nobody could come up with a definition for "sets," I raised my hand and smartly offered the definition for "sex:" "It's whether you're a boy or a girl," I bragged.

Mr. Baptista paused, realized what I must have been thinking, then exploded with laughter. "SETS, not SEX!" he said, wiping his eyes. The rest of the class giggled with him, eyes wide.

Later at recess a boy in my class came up to me and knowingly commiserated, "you thought he said 'sex,' huh?"

I just blushed, knowing that embarrassment could have EASILY been avoided. Kicking myself and my smart pants.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I try to mix things up a little bit at bed time. I periodically switch sides.

Seth used to forcibly resist such change, claiming it was physically impossible for him to sleep on a different side of the bed, but he's gotten to the point where he just incredulously questions what I'm doing and then accepts it.

The last few nights: right, left, right.

See, someone's got to prepare him. What if one day he gets called into the army and he is forced to sleep on a different side of a bed every night?

Monday, February 2, 2009

Wow, 12:01 p.m. and my coworker has seamlessly made the transition from answering the phone with a "Good morning" to answering the phone with a "Good afternoon!"

This is impressive.

Also: I see no reason whatsoever that a.m. should switch to p.m. at 12:00 rather than 1:00. It would make so much more sense if it went from 11:59 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. The whole clock just needs to be shifted so one is at the top, where it belongs. Okay?

About Me

I've got a two boys, born in 2010 and 2012 (respectively). I've also got a husband. He is a "policy analyst" (interpret those quote marks as you will) and I am a "household administrator." I also do some freelance writing and editing. I'm a Mormon. I can't skate backwards. I like fiction.